In the Thirteen American colonies, ten years prior to the Revolution, there was what was known as the Stamp Act crisis, which, in Boston in particular, brought forth that iconic cry.

By representation it was meant there was no American seated in the British Parliament.

“The Repeal or the Funeral of Miss Ame. -Stamp”

“New Hampshire: Stamp Master in Effigy”

“But,” according to historian Brian Deming, “the idea never gained traction in Britain.” As one British critic of the time wrote: “Shall we live to see the spawn of our Transports occupy the highest seats in our Commonwealth? Degenerate Britons! How can ye entertain the humiliating thought!”

The key word here is “Transport.” It references the many thousands of transported felons who had been shipped to the colonies for forced labor by way of punishment in the 18th Century.

During the 18th Century, England became a center of great wealth and mass poverty. Crime against property became commonplace. In reaction, the British government enacted harsh laws to punish minor and major offenders—a collection of laws that collectively came to be known as “The Bloody Codes.” One major punishment was transportation, by which children, women, and men were sent to British American colonies and sold into forced labor.

At the time of the Revolution there was a colonial population of two million. Some fifty thousand were (or had been) these transported felons. (Hence the quote cited above.) It had become a business. It was 1619 when the first Africans were brought to America as slaves. There was a time when enslaved whites and blacks labored together.

Booklist reviewed the book thus: “Though darker than its predecessor, this sequel is equally fine. The plotting is altogether laudable, the setting beautifully realized, and the characters highly empathetic. Especially good is the voice Avi has conjured for Oliver, just antique enough to evoke eighteenth century diction and syntax. One thing is certain: it may be the end of the world but there is no end to the pleasure Avi’s latest evokes.”

The place where I lived was also not far from the Brooklyn bay where the British had prisoner ships. Fifty thousand Americans died on those ships. The beach was littered with human bones.

Knowing the above led me to a youthful interest in the American Revolution.

One of the ways I learned about the Revolution was reading historical novels. Kenneth Roberts was a popular novelist in the forties, and wrote about those times. But, he was very much pro-British. One of the books he wrote was Rabble in Arms, which in large part was about Benedict Arnold, prior to his acts of treason. But, being a contrary teen-ager, I liked the notion that Arnold was not really so bad. I developed an interest in him, and of course, learned much more about him.

Many years later, I had begun an historical novel series. The guiding notion was I would tell a very realistic historical tale, but insert a fictional youth, as the protagonist. Thus Iron Thunder and Hard Gold were written.

The third in the series was to be about the prisons, prisoners, and spies in NYC during the revolution. It would have a girl protagonist. That was the genesis of Sophia’s War, and all of the above played into it.

The Battle of Brooklyn Heights, August 27, 1776

But by the time I got around to writing it the publisher of the first books in the series, did not want to carry on. I wrote it anyway, but without the illustrations that the first two books contained. It was published by a different publisher, as a stand-alone.

The marker in Brooklyn Heights, memorializing the largest battle in the Revolutionary War.

At some point I went to the spot where, in the book, Sophia’s family’s 18th century home would have stood in Manhattan. Needless to say, nothing of the 18th century was left, save the paths of the old crooked streets. And where Sophia’s home would have been stood a Trump Tower.

A reader here asks: “I would love to hear more about your tips for students on how to start the research process and lessons you have learned on how to sift through the vast amount of information on the internet.”

Research is a puzzle for many people, I think, because they approach a subject without previous knowledge. As a result, the massive amount of information on a given subject is indeed overwhelming.

If you look at my historical novels you will see that they, by and large, concern the United States and the United Kingdom, with some about Europe. I read history for the pleasure of it, focusing on these areas. When you have a general knowledge of say, the American Revolution, it’s much easier to write about something in particular that happened, such as I did in Sophia’s War.

As to how to get information, and detail, if you will, about a particular moment, here are my suggestions.

Let us say you are interested in an incident during the Battle of Gettysburg, during our Civil War. The literature is vast. Here’s what you do.

Get a good, recent, general history of the Civil War. Read it so you have a general sense of big events. Learn why, for instance, the Battle of Gettysburg is considered important.

That general history, if it’s any good, will have a bibliography at the back of the book. See which books are cited for that battle. Choose one or two of them, and read them.

Those books will also have bibliographies. And those bibliographies will lead you to more books—and articles—which are more precisely concerned with your subject.

And so forth … you keep narrowing down to specifics—via bibliographies—to find out what you want to know.

Photo: Vladim Kulikov, Shakespeare & Sons bookstore, Prague

How do you get your hands on these books, and articles? Your public library is a great place to begin. If they don’t have the title you want, many have interlibrary loan systems which will get what you need. Then—yes, on the internet—Google Scholar can help. Then, yes, again on the internet, seek out used-book dealers, and you can buy—often very cheaply—hard-to-find titles.

All during this process you should be reading, learning general and particular things. Finally, it is up to you to decide which particular details are interesting, revealing, and yes, entertaining to use. Just how to do that suggests another posting here.

In general I suggest that the more you know about the big picture, so to speak, the more you see the details.

If you were writing a book set in the fourteenth century, you might describe a character as “whispering,” but might that character say, “whisper to me”?

No, because it is not until Shakespeare used the word, in 1609 in his play, Pericles, that it enters the written language.

I know this because I checked with my (online) Oxford Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (referenced often as the OED).

Does it matter in your writing? I suppose the answer is yes and no. Would you have an ancient Briton look out upon a Roman Legion for the first time and mutter, “Totally awesome.” I think not. However, no one will clap you into jail if you do. Still, if you love words—I do—I think it makes a difference.

Obviously, I do not check every word.

Nonetheless, my own rule for this is that if I can use a key word from the time about which I am writing, which is self-explanatory, I will use it. Thus in City of Orphans, a teenager is described as “pout-mouthed.” Anyone who knows children will instantly understand this marvelous word, which was used around the turn of the Nineteenth Century. Since I stumbled upon it, I have used it in other works and in conversation. You are welcome to spread the word. Pout-mouthed. Totally awesome.

In my most recently published book, Sophia’s War, set in New York City during the American Revolution, I used some of the vocabulary current at that time. I even put a glossary of these words at the back of the book, such as “glowflies” (fireflies) or “pixie-led” (confused).

A current project, set in Fifteenth Century England, uses such words as “brainsick” for crazy, “misfortuned” for poor, and “dreariheaded,” for sad. They are accurate for the time. I think of these words as the spices and herbs one uses to flavor a stew, a word, I need caution you, that only enters the written English language in 1594.

Sometimes, when you publish an historical novel, readers send in corrections (I had the wrong gear shift sequence in the Model T Ford, in The Secret School). Sometimes you get additional information. Here is such a one for Sophia’s War. As I wrote my correspondent, “Oh! If only I had known about this particular soldier’s name and that the cannon still existed!!!!!” Maybe in the second edition.

This hard-to-find marker, with a plaque that reads “The Grave of John J. Peterson, Revolutionary War, Westchester Militia (1746 – 1850)” is the grave of a little-known African American soldier, who played a small but crucial role in a pivotal event of the war. On September 21, 1780, Peterson, along with Moses Sherwood, brought a cannon from Fort Lafayette at Verplanck’s Point to Croton Point. There they fired on the British frigate Vulture which was waiting to pick up Major John André, who at the time was plotting with American General Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West Point. The Vulture abandoned its river position, forcing the spy André to move overland on horseback. He was captured in Tarrytown a few days later carrying plans of West Point. André was hanged in the tiny Rockland County hamlet of Tappan on October 2, 1780. Today, the cannon used by the patriots sits in front of the Peekskill Museum. Sherwood is buried in Ossining’s Sparta Cemetery

Sophia’s War, just published, is a tale about the American Revolution. It takes places in New York City.

As readers of the book will learn, the British occupied New York for most of the war. I tried to describe the city as best as I could, based on rather extensive research. One of the key sites in the book is a building known as The Sugarhouse. This building was originally a place where Jamaican sugar was boiled down to become molasses. Since fire was involved, the building was made of stone. During the war the British converted it into a prison, and it became notorious for its squalor, deprivations, and cruelty—a place where many, many Americans died.

I recently went to New York City and wandered about the area where the story takes place. Needless to say, though many of the narrow streets have their old names, almost nothing that existed then, exists today. Except one thing. When the old Sugarhouse was torn down, someone saved one of the barred windows. It was eventually installed in a wall near what is called Police Plaza. It took some searching and lots of asking, but I found it, a truly poignant memorial. And here it is.

Faria, of Valley Stream, NY, writes, “I really like your book called The Fighting Ground. I think you should make a movie of it.”

I get lots of letters from my readers telling me that they think I should make one of my books (one that they have read and enjoyed) into a movie. I take this as a compliment, and like to think that have I provided enough vivid descriptions so that the book sometimes feels like a movie. But of course I can’t make a movie of one my books, let alone any other book. I don’t know how to do it. Film-making, and book-making, I think, require very different skills and talents. Then too, look at the credits at the end of a movie and count the number of people involved. You can see that the making of a movie is a vastly more complex project than the making of a book. It also requires a great deal of money, a lot more than I could imagine having. Yes, from time to time I am approached by film-makers. Projects start, and then stop. There are a few in process even now. I stay as far away as possible. To be sure, I enjoy going to the movies. But from what I have seen, it’s the rare film that is as good as, much less better than, the book. So truly, I enjoy reading much more. Besides, the pictures in my head stay longer.

Like this:

The most difficult aspect of Sophia’s War is the commingling of fact and fiction. The story of Benedict Arnold’s treason, and John André’s fate, is not just well known, it has been researched and detailed to an extraordinary degree. One of the books I used to research the event provided photographs and descriptions of everywhere André went during that extraordinary moment—virtually step by step. Moreover, my attempt to describe New York City during the British occupation (1776-7183) is based on detailed research that has been done by others. It is all as “correct” as I could write it.

But Sophia herself, and her story, is very much fiction. How can the two connect? It is because as the historians of the events record, there are two key moments in the Arnold/André saga that have never been satisfactorily illuminated. Historians speak of “luck,” “fate,” and “coincidence.” Perhaps. But it is just at those points that I have been able to create a character, motive, and means, for these mysterious events to be explained. Not the least of what makes it all work is that Sophia does not want to be noticed, is not noticed, and indeed, cannot be noticed in the context of who and what she is—an independent young woman. It’s very much like that wonderful book title, Anonymous Was a Woman.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said (if I have it right) “History is biography.” Sophia’s War is Sophia’s autobiography. Just don’t look for her in history books. You can only find her here. “The writer’s task,” as I once heard Paula Fox say, “is to imagine the truth.”

This has become an important part of the business in recent years as starred reviews drive book-buying decisions. Sophia’s War has received two starred reviews:

“Few historical novels are as closely shaped by actual events as this one during the last 100 pages. Working within the bounds of credibility, Avi manages to keep the fictional narrator on the scene for a good deal of the action and uses real moments to bring the imagined story to its dramatic heights.” —Booklist, starred review. Read more of this review …

“Newbery Medalist Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead) channels the mood, language, and danger of the Revolutionary War in this seamless blend of history and fiction, set in British-occupied New York City.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review Read more of this review …

Megan of Pompano Beach wrote me and asked, “Do you incorporate real events into your writing?”

The answer is, yes and no. The about to be published Sophia’s War is full of things that really happened during the American Revolution, but the main character, Sophia Calderwood, is fictional. Yet, I tell the story as if she had a great deal to do with what happened. Hard Gold and Iron Thunder were written much the same way. True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is a complete fiction, but I sure tried to get my facts about ships and sailing right. The Poppy books are tales about animals, but they are full of things that happened in my own family life—not that you would know it. Seer of Shadows, a ghost story, uses what I knew from my days as an amateur photographer. But the emotions and relationships I depict in my books are most often based on things out of my own experience, lived or observed. The facts—particularly for the historical fiction—comes from research. I suspect all fiction is created this way. No matter how fantastic the tale, there is some real connection to the writer.

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